Modelling emission limits in product planning

We present a novel method to model different emission limits in product planning. Along with the increasing environmental pollution charges and taxes, modelling emission limits becomes critical for manufactories. We divide emission limits into three categories based on different regulations or rules from governments: periodical emission limits, overall emission limits and tradable emission limits. Then three implosive models are presented to integrate emission limits in product planning. Further, we introduce Watson Implosion Technology toolkit to model and optimise these emission limits uniformly, while emission limits are modelled as capacity, material and purchasable material respectively. We also study the extended problem that a replaceable product with lower emission is considered. Experiments demonstrate the quantitative influences on product planning from different kinds of emission limits, and the results can help manufactories to make decisions to maximise the profits with emission limits compliance. Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.